Crash (1996)

Since I recently watched that movie CRASH that Roger Ebert said was the best movie of 2005, I decided to finally go back and watch the original David Cronenberg version, which in my opinion is pretty fucking different.

This is the courageous story of a movie producer (James Spader) and his wife (Debora Kara Unger from STANDER and PAYBACK and THE GAME) and all the people they like to fuck from behind (various). The movie opens with Ms. Unger in an a hangar rubbing her nipple against an airplane while some dude licks her ass. And you can imagine where it would go from there (perverted car crashes, etc.). Very predictable, standard stuff.

Okay, if I must spell it out for you: The plot really kicks in when Spader causes a car accident that badly injures himself and Holly Hunter, and kills her husband. They later meet up at the junkyard where their wrecked cars are kept, and have sex in a car while (we find out later) Elias Koteas takes pictures.

The only way to accurately describe this movie is as a late night Cinemax movie gone horribly, disastrously wrong. Maybe this is the Shannon Tweed movie you’d watch on Videodrome.

Elias Koteas’s character Vaughn is sort of the leader of a weird subculture of people sexually obsessed with car crashes. Both James Spader and Holly Hunter met him while rehabilitating in the hospital, because he came in and took photos of their injuries. Later they go around together and find highway accidents and lecherously photograph them.

My favorite scene in the movie is the introduction to this subculture. Spader and Hunter sit with a small crowd on some bleachers while Vaughn and two professional stuntmen recreate the car crash that killed James Dean. Then the cops show up (actually Department of Transportation, Vaughn says) and everybody runs off. This whole scene just has this great dreamlike feeling of that weird perverted thing you stumbled across that you probaly aren’t supposed to know about, like that time I found a web sight of photoshopped giantess pictures, or that other time I found the web sight of dudes riding around in canoes wearing diapers. What makes it even better though is Spader doesn’t look all that horrified by it, it’s more like he’s watching a school play or something. Everybody claps politely after the crash, even though they’re not sure yet if everybody is okay.

There’s not as much dialogue as in most movies, and what’s there is usually in half whispered monotones. The score is spacy, minimalistic guitar strumming. Some people will read this as artiness but for me it only emphasises the Cinemax feel. I like Cronenberg alot and his freakiness is a big part of his appeal. But I gotta be honest, I didn’t enjoy watching this one too much. The uncovering of the subculture is great, but after the Jayne Mansfield crash it seems like there’s no more plot to propel anything. It really does have a porno structure because most of the movie is just stringing together the different combinations of characters having sex with each other and the crazy, disgusting shit that happens. (At least in the NC-17 version I saw. I’m sure the R-rated version is probaly a light comedy about an auto race or competition among used car salesmen or something like that).

So you get a scene where Spader fucks Rosanna Arquette’s leg wound. And you get a scene where Spader and Vaughn get “prophetic tattoos” of a steering wheel and a hood ornament, then they fuck in a car and lick each other’s bloody tattoos. That kind of thing. There’s one scene that’s more like a normal sex scene between Spader and Unger, but if you’re gonna jerk off to that one you’ll probaly have to put it on mute because the whole time Unger keeps asking questions about Elias Koteas, like “Have you seen his penis?” and “What do you think his anus looks like?” It’s possible that she’s just really terrible at pillow talk but I think something more was going on here.

Okay I’ll just say it, I don’t get this movie. I mean I like that it exists but I don’t really understand what it’s supposed to be about. But I bet it’s something. Way to go Cronenberg, I imagine you probaly did a good job on this one.

VERN has been reviewing movies since 1999 and is the author of the books SEAGALOGY: A STUDY OF THE ASS-KICKING FILMS OF STEVEN SEAGAL, YIPPEE KI-YAY MOVIEGOER!: WRITINGS ON BRUCE WILLIS, BADASS CINEMA AND OTHER IMPORTANT TOPICS and NIKETOWN: A NOVEL. His horror-action novel WORM ON A HOOK will arrive later this year.

6 Responses to “Crash (1996)”

The general queasiness of Vern’s review is understandable, but is a little telling of film audiences’ prudishness towards sexuality in film. Especially towards alternative sexuality, that isn’t homogenized into a cliche or stereotype as it is here. You could say it was a good barometer of the subject for the film community in general. Francis Ford Coppola opposed the film when it was shown at Cannes, the year he was president of the jury. It was banned from being shown in London’s West End, British journalists and politicians went out of their way to crucify it on moral grounds. In the U.S., it was practically buried in release by the studio and really found a life after in home release.

Probably exposing a bit of myself here, but I liked it a lot. It’s my 2nd favorite Cronenberg movie (1st being HISTORY OF VIOLENCE). The sex didn’t feel as quite as pornographic (one could make the argument it isn’t that at all) as I’ve seen in more pulpier mainstream fare, and it was a welcome change to see it. I am a sucker for jangly guitar scores, so Howard Shore’s music hit the right note for me. And an interesting cast, in that he could get such name actors for such risky material. Spader in particular is good, and his fearlessness for diving into these kinds of roles (SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE and later SECRETARY) is to be applauded. It’s a shame he hasn’t done more worthy film work, but I was glad to hear he was cast in Spielberg’s LINCOLN.

Should probably point out a few errors in my initial comment. “As it is here” meant that the film didn’t stereotype what I referred to as alternative sexuality. And I clearly missed typing “video” in the last part of that first sentence.